


Mama Holt

by GriffinRose



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Female Pidge | Katie Holt, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Mama Holt is the best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-08-15 09:22:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8050861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GriffinRose/pseuds/GriffinRose
Summary: After an impromptu vacation to Earth, all the paladins come back with a few things from home. Lance brought pictures, Hunk brought his family's cooking, Shiro brought books, and Pidge...well.Pidge brought her mother. AKA Mama Holt adjusts to her new life in space and slowly adopts everyone.





	Mama Holt

They hadn’t planned to take a vacation on Earth, but when they picked up Hunk after the wormhole incident (the last unaccounted for Paladin) they found that they were only two systems away. Lance begged Allura to let them have a couple days back home, just enough to reassure their families that they weren’t dead and that they’d come back and to maybe grab a few more changes of clothes. 

If it had just been Lance, Allura would have held strong, but then Hunk joined Lance. And then Pidge wiped at her face and said she really wanted to let her mom know that she was okay. And then Shiro, of all people, even argued for a short visit home. 

“We’re not giving up on Voltron,” he said, “We just want to see our families and let them know what’s going on. I want to tell my parents I’m not dead.” 

It was Shiro that she caved for. The Black Paladin so rarely asked for anything and had been so strong in the fight against Zarkon, she couldn’t refuse him this. 

She gave them one week. If they didn’t return after seven days, she promised to activate the tracking beam and drag them back herself. 

Coran set the castle down on Pluto, far enough away that even if Earth did notice them, they wouldn’t be able to do anything, but close enough the Paladins had less than a minute long flight. With everyone safe and no Galra in this territory, it provided him the chance to work on some castle maintenance he’d been neglecting in favor of reuniting everyone. 

So the five paladins set off for Earth. (Keith returned after only two days, a box of his belongings with him. He spent the rest of the week helping Coran). 

At the end of the seven days, the rest of the Paladins all returned as promised. They all brought a few boxes with them, and it took a while for Allura and Coran to adjust to seeing them in different clothes. Lance was also armed with a photo album and an entire box of nothing but board games and movies. Hunk had brought some typical Earth food for everyone and some non-perishables that would last for a few months. Shiro had brought books. 

Pidge brought her mother. 

She was the last one to return, and everyone eagerly went to go greet her in the Green Lion’s hanger. When two people left the cockpit instead of one, no one knew what to do. 

“Uh…Pidge?” Allura asked. “Who is this?”

Pidge rubbed her forehead. “Guys, this is my mom.”

Her mom waved timidly at everyone. “Hello everyone. It’s lovely to meet you all.”

“And why is your mother here?” Keith asked. 

“Seriously, if we could have brought people I would have brought my family in a heartbeat!” Lance said. “I mean they wouldn’t have all fit in Blue but I would have figured something out.”

“She refused to let me leave without her,” Pidge said. “She wouldn’t even let me out of her sight all week! Not even to the bathroom!” The indignant glare from Pidge and the slight blush on Mrs. Holt assured them that this was true. 

“Well when the last person in your family suddenly reappears after being missing for months, and then tells you she’s been drafted into a space war, it’s a little hard to let her go again,” Mrs. Holt said, putting a hand on Pidge’s shoulder. She made eye contact with everybody as she went on. “I’m not just here to keep an eye on Katie. I want to help you fight this Zarkon, and find my husband and son. If you teach me how the mechanics of this…castle, ship, thing works, I can help around here.”

“Pidge,” Shiro said. He found it easier to focus on the green paladin rather than Mrs. Holt. The guilt he’d thought he’d buried was threatening to burst from the ground, but he’d worry about that later. 

Pidge turned a tired glare to Shiro. “Not even to the bathroom,” she repeated. 

Shiro sighed and looked to Allura. “It’s your castle, your call.”

Allura was not pleased that he put the decision in her hands. How was she supposed to tell a mother that she couldn’t keep an eye on her child? Or tell the child to go drag her mother home and leave her behind? 

She didn’t like it. She didn’t like it one bit, but she didn’t know how to say no. “Alright. You can stay. But you better believe we’ll work you to the bone.”

Mrs. Holt simply nodded. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” 

While not satisfied, Allura was appeased by the answer. 

Xx

The first thing Mrs. Holt made herself useful doing was helping out with dinner. She, Hunk, and Coran were all gathered in the kitchen. For now, Hunk had several meals prepared for everyone, but they would run out in a few days. But it helped having Mrs. Holt around to figure out how to preserve everything for even that long, and even more so for her help in figuring out how to reheat things. Coran had his input, but the first thing he tried to reheat ended up as a charred mess. (“Your earth food sure is delicate.”

“You set it on fire!”

“That’s the quickest way to reheat the space goo!”

“We eat that at room temperature!”

“You should try it hot! It’s a whole new texture. Tastes like the Tyriwos on the Bonso moons.”)

He’d been banned from touching the Earth food after that, much to his chagrin. 

Mrs. Holt set out plates for everyone. “You really made all this yourself, Hunk?”

“Well my family helped. As soon as I told them the food situation they went out and bought enough food to feed the town. Not that I’m complaining, I love cooking with everyone.”

Mrs. Holt smiled. “I think it’s very sweet.” 

Hunk smiled. “Food brings people together. I like to share it with people.”

“That’s a wonderful notion,” Mrs. Holt said. 

The team came in not long after, and Lance latched onto Hunk. “You brought lasagna I love you so much.”

“I know you do. Now shut up and eat.” 

The meal was spent sharing stories from the week. Lance and Hunk dominated the conversation, with the others joining in every so often. Mrs. Holt kept quiet for the most part, watching the interactions with everyone. The other teenager, Kevin? No, Keith. Keith was also quiet, but as soon as Lance made a jab at him he was quick to respond. 

She would have loved to have talked with Shiro more, hear how he was doing after everything, but after inhaling his lasagna he was quick to leave, claiming he’d slacked off on training all week and wanted to get a work out in before bed. He hadn’t looked at her through the whole meal, had barely even spared her two words. 

Her mind told her to give him space, he’d been through a lot. But her heart ached to comfort this young man who’d been abducted by aliens with the rest of her family. For now, she listened to her head. 

Xx

Allura hadn’t been kidding when she’d said she would work Mrs. Holt to the bone. After dinner, while the rest of the paladins joined Shiro for some light training, Mrs. Holt was sent off with Coran to start learning the Altean technology. She wasn’t the prodigy her daughter was, but she was able to keep up with the basics Coran was telling her. He ran her through the simple stuff, promising that once she had the basics down they’d get into the harder stuff. 

It took a while for her to wrap her mind around the Altean technology. None of it looked like how she pictured it might, and of course any helpful labels were all in Altean. 

“You’re telling me my daughter actually understands all of this?” Mrs. Holt asked after an hour. Her brain hurt from the onslaught of information.

Coran smiled. “Not only understands it, but is able to work with it and program entirely new functions if we don’t watch her.” He laughed. “She modified a pod once with a nitro boost and an invisibility cloak when she’d only been here a week.” 

Mrs. Holt smiled softly. “She always was a curious type.” 

Coran sat down next to her. “She’s been amazing on this team. The Galra broke in once and had complete control of the castle. Hunk and I were off-planet at the time, and Keith and Allura were locked out while Shiro and Lance were prisoners. Your daughter single-handedly kept the Galra from taking off with our ship and saved Shiro and Lance. We would have lost Voltron that day without her.”

Pride surged through Mrs. Holt. Of course her daughter was more than capable, she wouldn’t expect otherwise. Katie had always been able to rise to a challenge and set the bar higher for everyone else. But along with that pride was fear. Her daughter shouldn’t have to be out here, shouldn’t have to go up against these Galra alone. Failure didn’t mean a low grade or a lecture. Failure meant Mrs. Holt would never see her daughter again. 

Coran watched her and all her emotions flashing across her face. He put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s hard to watch your child be a soldier, especially one so young as yours. If we could have chosen otherwise, we would have. But the lions insist on their pilots, and we only get to know why as we go along.” 

Mrs. Holt took a shaky breath. “I know, I know. And if we ever want to see the rest of our family then of course we’ll be in danger, but it’s hard to let her do these things. I’m supposed to protect her, not let her go off into a space war.”

Coran gave her a small smile. “But she’s not alone out there. And as much as she tries to act like she didn’t want you to come, she already seems a lot happier.”

The information did little to mollify her, but she repeated the mantra she’d been saying to herself ever since the green lion left Earth: Whatever happens, she wanted to know about it. Not knowing, like with Samuel and Matt, was so much worse. At least this way, if the unthinkable did happen, she would know to grieve and mourn. 

“Now, let’s get back to the fire suppressant systems, shall we?” Coran said, standing up and offering his hand. 

Xx

When she finally escaped her first tutorial, the paladins had already finished their training. Kevin-Keith, his name is Keith!- was the only one still in the training room, fighting some sort of robot. He paused it when he saw her peeking in. 

“Pidge is probably in her hanger,” he said, wiping a hand over his brow. 

“Oh, thank you.” She was about to leave when she realized she didn’t know where to go. “Um…”

“Go right, take the first left, then the third right, go down the stairs, and follow the sounds of the tinkering,” he said. 

She smiled. “Thanks.” 

He offered a smile and a nod and turned back to the robot. She let the door slide shut behind her, and only then did she hear the fighting resume. 

Following his instructions was easy enough, and the sound of tinkering reached her even before she was all the way down the stairs. 

Katie was hunched over a work bench, her hair wet and just starting to curl on the edges. There was a myriad of Altean tech spread out before her, half of which Mrs. Holt couldn’t even identify. Katie pulled a cable from a platform at her feet and hooked it up to one of the pieces. A giant purple crystal was on the platform. 

“What are you working on?” Mrs. Holt asked. 

Katie jumped, one hand reaching for the strange weapon attached to her belt. She relaxed almost instantly. “Don’t sneak up on me, mom.” 

“Sorry, but you were the one with your back to the door,” Mrs. Holt said. 

Katie frowned and glared at the door, seeming to take that into consideration. “Right. Anyway, we’ve had this Galra crystal for a while. I was going to use it to try and learn more about their tech, see if I can teach myself anything more about it and develop something that interfaces with that technology besides Shiro’s hand.” 

Mrs. Holt blinked, only understanding half of what her daughter had just said. Katie saw the blank look and went on explaining what she meant, picking up different pieces she was using for the process. It was a lot easier to follow than what Coran had been explaining, and Mrs. Holt soon found herself offering some ideas of her own. 

Most of them Katie had either tried already or didn’t have a way to make them work, and it felt so much like when Katie was younger Mrs. Holt had to remind herself they were in space. Nothing was the same anymore. But when Katie smiled up at her, thanking her for the input, Mrs. Holt allowed the nostalgia to run through her. 

She checked her watch at some point and her eyes widened when she saw it was almost two in the morning. “Alright, it’s way past bed time.”

Katie paused with her fingers over her laptop and slowly looked at her mother. “You can’t be serious.”

Mrs. Holt flashed her watch. “I’m very serious. It’s almost two in the morning, and you have training again tomorrow, right?”

“No, I mean…bed time? Seriously? I’m a Defender of the Universe I don’t have a bed time.” Katie regretted the words as soon as her mother’s face darkened. Mama Holt was not a mother who tolerated back talk. 

“You are a fourteen year old girl, and whether you’re some fancy defender of the universe or not does not negate the fact that you still need eight hours of sleep a night minimum.” 

Katie snorted. She hadn’t had that much sleep at once in well over a year, since before the Kerberos mission. “Sorry, mom, but things are a little different in space.”

“Your physiology is not one of them,” her mother retorted, crossing her arms. “Bed. Now. This will still be waiting for you later.” 

“I’m not tired,” Katie insisted, attempting to go back to work on her programming. 

“You will be later, and I know how grouchy you are when you’re tired. Come on, save your project and let’s go.” 

Katie muttered under her breath but ultimately did as told. Programming just wasn’t as easy when a mother was nagging in your ear. 

Xx

Mrs. Holt was given her own room in the same hallway as everyone else. She was next to Lance and two doors away from her daughter. (Lance had offered to switch so they could be next to her, but upon seeing the amount of pictures he’d taped to the walls and the general chaos his room was in, Mrs. Holt decided two rooms wasn’t that far away). 

The only picture she decorated the room with was the last one of her entire family, when Katie still had long hair. She missed those gorgeous locks on her baby girl, but Katie had never been one for styling her hair. The most she ever did was throw it in lopsided pony-tails or shove a headband in. This choppy look she had now suited her and this lifestyle better. 

Voltron…this was all a lot to take in. Defending the entire known universe was a lot of pressure. It still didn’t feel real. But whatever this was, it was better than pretending everything was fine back on Earth. 

As she curled up to sleep, she comforted herself with that thought. 

Xx

Breakfast was already made by the time Katie led her into the dining room the next morning. Everyone else was already there. 

She didn’t miss how Shiro instantly struck up conversation with Kev-Keith damn it- and again refused to look at her. She frowned at that but took a seat next to her daughter while Hunk and Coran served the meal. 

“So did you sleep okay, Mama Holt?” Lance asked. 

“Yes, thank you.”

“Good, good,” he said. He folded his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair. “The castle takes some getting used to, but I’m glad you’re finding it so easy.” 

She smiled at him. It was sweet he was concerned, but half a day could hardly be considered adjusted. 

After breakfast the paladins all headed off to training, Allura and Coran both following to observe them for a little bit. With nothing better to do, Mrs. Holt went with them. 

She nearly had a heart attack every other minute when one of the paladins almost got hit. Or, more often than not, did get hit. 

“Are you sure this is really safe?” she asked, watching her daughter narrowly duck under the gladiator’s swing.

“Perfectly,” Coran said, twirling his mustache. “The training bots aren’t programmed to harm. The second one of them is knocked to the floor it automatically switches target.”

“On this level, anyway,” Allura said. She glared through the window. “The higher levels will continue to pursue until their target stays down for ten ticks or is beaten.”

“True,” Coran said. “But that’s still several levels away.”

“And it’s unacceptable,” Allura said. “How are they supposed to fight off Galra when all five of them together can’t even handle one robot? I never should have let them take a week off, they have too much to learn.”

Mrs. Holt bristled. “If I may,” she started, crossing her arms and drawing herself up to her full height (unfortunately, she was the same height as the Altean so it didn’t matter. “Learning to fight does not happen overnight. And none of them asked to be made paladins, they were forced to. Considering the circumstances, I think they’re doing rather well.”

Allura turned her glare to Mrs. Holt. “Whether they asked for this or not does not matter. They were chosen, and they’ve all accepted. They are all here willingly, and I expect them to honor that with everything they’ve got.”

“They’re teenagers! They’re giving it all they’ve got! But you can’t turn them into black belts like this.” 

“I’m not turning them into anything,” Allura muttered before shaking her head at the English phrase. “In any case, they are my paladins. And I’ll remind you that you are only here by my graciousness. I could send you back to Earth in a pod at any time.”

Allura looked back at the paladins, leaving Mrs. Holt to stew in her anger. The alien was right; she could be sent back at any time. 

Coran glanced between the two women. “Ah, right then. It looks like you have this handled Allura, so I’ll go show our guest how the navigation system works.” He led Mrs. Holt out of there as quickly as he could, which was, honestly, probably for the better. 

The rest of the day passed without incident. Most of the crew was slowly warming up to her, giving her gentle smiles and waves when passing each other or entering a room.

The only one who didn’t was Shiro, and after another meal of him pointedly ignoring her, she decided she needed to nip this in the bud. 

She found him training with Keith-no, wait, yes, Keith- after cleaning up dinner. Both boys were excellent fighters, though Shiro was clearly the more experienced one. He pinned Keith facedown with a knee on his back and arms bent behind him. 

She cleared her throat and both of them jumped. 

“Oh, hi, Mrs. Holt,” Shiro said, rubbing the back of his neck and looking away. “We were just finishing up. Good job Keith, but watch your footwork next time. I’m going to go shower.”

He tried to make a quick exit, but she stepped into his path. “Actually I was hoping to talk to you.” 

Keith came up next to him, a question in his eyes. 

“Keith, would you excuse us?” she asked, never breaking eye contact with Shiro. She worried that if she broke eye contact he would take that chance to bolt. 

“Um…sure.” He hesitated, glancing at Shiro, before walking out of the training room and leaving the two of them alone. 

Once Keith was gone, Shiro’s façade dropped. The laidback smile, his shoulders…it all ran out of him. “I’m so sorry about your family. I did everything I could, I swear, but I don’t know, maybe if I had fought harder…”

“Shiro, stop,” she said, heart breaking as he rambled. She put a hand on his shoulder and peered down to look up at his face. “Look at me, okay? I never blamed you for anything. And none of this was your fault anyway, so I never had a reason to.”

“But if I had been paying attention on Kerberos, maybe we could have made it back to the ship in time. Or if I had fought earlier in the beginning…”

“Shiro, did you know Samuel asked me if he could go on the mission?” she interjected. 

He blinked. “Uh…no?”

She nodded. “The day they picked him to lead it, he asked me if I would be okay with him leaving on an eighteen month mission. If I had said no, he would have refused and they would have picked a different commander who in turn would have picked a different team.” 

Shiro didn’t say anything. 

“It’s easy to blame yourself,” she went on, “because you’re the only thing you can control. And I’ve blamed myself every day since I heard the news, thinking that if I had been selfish and said no, I wouldn’t have lost my husband and my son.” 

He looked away again, swallowing and taking a trembling breath. 

“But there are so many things outside of our control, Shiro. The Garrison, the Galra, Voltron…none of it is in our control. All we can do is make do with what we have.”

Slowly, he let his eyes drift back to her. They shined with the beginnings of tears, and Mrs. Holt added her other hand to his second shoulder. 

“I know you fought tooth and nail to protect my family,” she said softly. “And you’re still fighting tooth and nail to get them back. I can’t thank you enough for that.”

“It’s the least I can do,” he tried, his voice low and shaky. 

She shook her head and felt tears building behind her eyes. “You keep forgetting that you were taken by an alien dictator too. You’re as much a victim as they are. And you have no idea how glad I am that you’re okay, Shiro.” 

That was the final crack in the dam. Shiro clenched his eyes shut and slammed the heels of his palms into his sockets, simultaneously biting his lip and choking out a sob. His shoulders hunched in on himself and he sank to his knees. 

Mrs. Holt sank with him, wrapping her arms tightly around him and whispering in his ear. Her own tears spilled over her cheeks. 

He may not have been her husband or her son, but she’d grown close with him before Kerberos from all the planning meetings and the times he hung out with Matt at their house, bonding with his crew mates. And besides that, he was proof that she could get back what was lost. After all, if he was alive and well, then there was a chance the rest of her family was too. 

Xx

It was easy to fall into a routine in the castle. Katie woke her up for breakfast and they walked to the dining hall together, where Coran had already dished out what they called space goo. Conversation was limited with everyone just waking up, though as soon as Lance had something in his system it was impossible to keep him quiet. 

She didn’t even know how he found so much to talk about when they weren’t doing anything. 

After breakfast the paladins went off for training while she shadowed Coran and helped with maintenance. Sometimes they would help with training first, just to get the paladins started. She loved watching them all interact so easily with one another, though it was always jarring to see her little girl so ruthless on the battlefield. 

She and Coran then got lunch ready, and that was always a chaotic meal. Everyone was still pumped from training and the most awake they were going to be all day, and Keith and Lance couldn’t seem to stop arguing. It took her a while to realize the banter was mostly playful, lacking any real bite. Once she did, their spats were actually entertaining. 

After lunch varied depending on if Allura found a system to try and help or not. Sometimes the team went out to take out some Galra fleets around a planet and free another system from their tyranny. The missions tended not to take too long; Allura was picking small targets with little Galra presence, so it was easy to pick them all off. But they were building their supporters one planet at a time and methodically saving the universe, and though it was hard to see they were helping. 

On the days they didn’t have a mission, they spent the afternoon training. It still seemed like too much to Mrs. Holt, but she’d learned to keep quiet. Allura could still have her shipped back to Earth, and that was the last place she wanted to be right now. Instead she focused her efforts on learning the workings of the ship until dinner. 

She and Hunk were in charge of this meal. Hunk had warned her never to leave Coran in charge of their meals, unless she wanted to try various forms of mystery alien escargot surprise. She turned green at the thought and silently vowed to not let that happen. 

She liked the yellow paladin. He was kind and thoughtful and always had extra smiles for everyone. He even hugged her after a couple days when he found her crying in the kitchen, mourning the life on earth she’d given up. It wasn’t much of a life anymore, but it had still been all she’d known. He gave good hugs. 

When dinner was over she took it upon herself to clean up the kitchen and get things ready for breakfast the next day. Then, if Coran didn’t need her help for anything, she would shower and take time for herself before joining Katie in her workshop and tinkering for a while. On days when there was a mission, these nights were spent with Katie in her mother’s lap. Neither of them would change this for anything. 

Xx

About two weeks after Mrs. Holt first joined the crew, she was running maintenance on the cryopods when Keith came in, cradling his right hand. Both of them froze at his entrance, staring at each other for a moment. Clearly, he hadn’t thought anyone would be in here. 

“Just running some routine maintenance,” she explained. “Did you need help?”

“I, uh, no, it’s just a sprain, I think,” he mumbled, looking away. 

Mrs. Holt frowned. She didn’t know Keith very well, other than his competitiveness with Lance and reckless actions on the battlefield. He was always polite and usually smiled a greeting, but now he was refusing to look at her. He was probably the type that didn’t like asking for help. 

“Well, let’s take a look,” she said, putting her current tool down and walking towards him. 

He glanced over. “No, it’s okay, I can handle it.”

“I’d feel better if I checked it over,” she admitted. Maternal instincts were never limited to her own blood children. 

Keith looked like he might bolt, but she could see that his wrist was swollen from here so she took the initiative and reached for his arm. 

“Come on.” 

He let her lead him to the med table on the side of the room, and he proceeded to stand there awkwardly while she got a scanner out from underneath. 

“Now, let’s see if I remember how to work this…”

“Really, it’s not that bad, I can probably just get some ice from the kitchen…” he took one step and her hand lashed out, grabbing his arm. 

“Keith.” She gave him her best “mom look,” the one she used to use on Katie and Matt when they tried to lie and cover up whatever she knew they’d done. 

He jumped up on the table and thrust his arm out, stubbornly looking the other way while his face turned pink. 

That’s an interesting reaction, she thought. She held the scanner over his wrist and pushed a few buttons, then held it still while it gave a quick x-ray. 

“So what happened?” she asked. 

“Screwed up in training and fell,” he muttered. 

The scanner beeped, the monitor lighting up and showing the bones of Keith’s wrist. She frowned at it. Everything looked in order, but it was definitely swollen…

“Um, here,” he said, reaching over with his other hand and pushing a button. The view switched from the bones to his muscles, and it highlighted his entire wrist in red and gave a dialogue box full of Altean script. 

“Oh, thanks. Well, assuming I’m reading this right, it is just a bad sprain. There’s some healing gels we can cover it in, but you should try not to move it for a few days.”

“Yeah, I figured.” 

Well. He was turning into quite the surly teenager. What had she done wrong? 

She fetched the healing gel and some bandages, almost expecting Keith to book it while her back was turned. Surprisingly, he stayed put and let her continue her ministrations. 

“I’m…sorry if I’m making you uncomfortable,” she said. 

He looked at her with wide eyes and confusion on his face. 

“It’s just a mother thing, I guess.” Oh no, she was about to ramble, wasn’t she? He needed to say something and stop her. “You get used to sticking on band-aids and wrapping twisted ankles.” Why wasn’t he saying anything? This had to be embarrassing for both of them. “Matt used to twist his ankles all the time growing up. He found every hole in our backyard, I think.” 

Keith was watching her, but he still wasn’t saying anything so she kept talking. 

“Anyway, I’m not trying to replace your mother. There are just some habits that are hard to break, and with everything that’s been going on recently I’ve really missed getting to be a mom, and…”

He finally cut her off. “I don’t have one. A mother, I mean.”

She paused, only halfway done wrapping the bandage around his wrist. He was looking at the floor. 

“She died when I was young. I got bounced around the system until I went to the Garrison.” 

“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know.”

He shrugged. “Not something I usually tell people. But I didn’t want you to feel bad thinking you were replacing something I didn’t have anyway.” 

He was an orphan and he was worried about her feelings? Her chest physically ached with everything she was feeling now. 

She gathered him into a hug, and he went stiff as a board against her. When the thought “he’s not used to hugs because he grew up without a loving family” crossed her mind, she hugged him even tighter. 

It took him a minute to hug her back, and she smiled. There was room in the Holt household for one more, she thought. 

Xx

Mrs. Holt hadn’t meant to become an insomniac, she really hadn’t. But there was always just so much going on and so much to do that it was hard for her to unwind whenever she got a spare moment. She always felt like she had to do something. It didn’t help that half the time there was something she could be doing. 

It also really didn’t help that no one on this ship-castle-thing had decent sleep habits. Any time she went for a walk during the night cycle, she always ran into at least two other people. One was almost always Shiro, his nightmares the bane of everyone’s existence. He never wanted to talk about them, but sitting with him seemed to help. Lately they’d gotten in the habit of talking about Earth when she found him. (She didn’t always find him, and those nights worried her).

She quickly developed a nightly routine. After dinner and a little while to herself, she checked on Hunk. He was almost always the first one in bed, but if he got caught up in tinkering with something all bets were off. He liked explaining current projects to her, especially since she paid attention and would ask about them a few days later. 

After Hunk she dragged Keith out of the training room, threatening to confiscate his bayard on more than one occasion. He didn’t usually put up a fight, but if training hadn’t gone well or a mission had been stressful, he refused to leave at first. She found that hugging him was the quickest way to make him stop; as soon as she stepped onto the floor he paused the simulation so she wouldn’t get hurt, and as soon as her arms were around him he would freeze for a solid minute, even after this became a habit and he knew it was coming. (Part of her wondered if this was his way of asking for a hug without actually asking). 

Later, once Keith was locked out of the training room and promising to go to bed, she joined Katie in her workshop and stayed with her until they both went to bed. Katie, thankfully, seemed to sleep through the night, but Mrs. Holt was always up again after an hour or two, restless. That was when she’d find Shiro and wander the castle.

About once a week she would find Lance in the control room with the star map gently spinning around him. He never programmed it to any specific planet, and she had a good idea why. Not knowing what planets circled your head made it easy to pretend they were the ones you were familiar with. 

On these nights, she saw his obnoxious teenager mask crumble and he sobbed in her arms. It didn’t matter that he’d just seen his family a few weeks ago and gotten to say a proper goodbye this time. Somehow, them knowing he was out here risking his life made it worse. He knew they were worried about him now, wondering if he was dead or not. 

“Before I only assumed they were worried, you know?” he had explained one night, knees hugged to his chest. “But when I pictured them I still pictured them happy and carefree. Now I know they’re worried and just praying I get to come home again.”

His face was buried against her neck and she rubbed circles into his back. Nothing she could say would make him feel better. They worried because they cared? He’d just feel more guilty. It would work out in the end? This was a war there was no guarantee, they couldn’t make that promise. They’d be proud of him? Even if they were that didn’t change things. 

Sometimes, you just had to let the people you cared about be sad. “Tell me about your family,” she had said. And that started their tradition of sharing embarrassing family stories on nights like this. It hurt a little to think of what they’d lost, but remembering it together helped both of them cope. 

It also gave her strength not to strangle him during his more obnoxious moments at meal times. (Seriously, why did all his conversations with Keith end in a shouting match? Was he doing that on purpose?) 

After sending Lance off to bed, she tended to run into the Alteans. She assumed they just didn’t need as much sleep, since they always seemed to have more energy than the rest of the humans combined, but she found herself comforting them more than once too. 

With Coran it was easy. He’d been doing this for so long he already had solid coping methods, and he just needed to talk with someone for a little bit. Between Mrs. Holt and Lance, he was the poster boy for good mental health. And oftentimes, he just needed to rant about his irritations from dealing with the paladins all day. (“Honestly, would it kill them to clean something once in a while?”)

Mrs. Holt was a pro at gossiping about her children, and it was nice to admit her frustrations every now and then. Coran encouraged her to do so, promoting that strong mental health image again. 

The toughest nut to crack on the ship was Allura. They tended to clash on what they thought the paladins should spend their time doing, and Mrs. Holt still felt like Allura didn’t really want her on the ship. The first few times she found the princess at night she cleared out of the area quickly; four in the morning was not the time to go looking for a fight. 

About a month after her space adventure started, she stumbled upon the Princess crying over a cup of spilled tea in the kitchen. The whole picture was so ridiculous and out of character that Mrs. Holt couldn’t help staring for a few minutes while her brain processed it. In that time, Allura realized she wasn’t alone and was already trying to put herself back together again. 

“Sorry, it’s…this was just a very important tea cup, you see, and…” She gathered the shards while she rambled. 

Mrs. Holt grabbed a towel and kneeled next to each other. “I’m sure it was,” she said softly. 

Allura went quiet and they cleaned up the mess. Mrs. Holt waited until the shards were in the trash and they each had fresh cups before trying to start conversation again. 

“I’m sorry I’m always arguing with you,” she said. 

Allura’s ears twitched in surprise, apparently not expecting her to start with that. 

“I know what everyone is doing is important, and there’s so much to do and so little time, but it’s all so surreal.” She wrapped her fingers around the cup, letting the warmth seep into her fingers. 

Allura sat the same way on the other side of the table. “Hunk has tried to explain it to me before, how difficult it is trying to understand just how big the universe is when they’d been taught they were the only life there was.” 

Mrs. Holt smiled. “Yes. We’re such an arrogant species.” 

“Oh, that’s not what I meant at all,” Allura said. 

Mrs. Holt shook her head. “I know. I’m just bitter towards it. If we’d expected alien life, maybe the Kerberos crew would have been better prepared and my family wouldn’t be enslaved in some work camp.”

Allura reached across the table, putting a hand over Mrs. Holt’s wrist. “If there’s one thing I know about your family, it’s how strong you all are. I’m sure they’re both fine.” 

“Thank you. I…it’s hard, accepting all this as reality. But this is what you’ve grown up with and known all your life, and I can only imagine how much harder it is for you.”

The princess stiffened and withdrew her hand, grasping the teacup a little harder than she needed to. “Like you said, it is hard. I woke up to find my father and my people gone, and suddenly I’m in charge of the universe’s only hope for freedom.” 

She kept her gaze on the steam curling from the tea, and this time Mrs. Holt reached a hand across the table for her. 

“Some days I think how big the universe is, and I can see it from your perspective. There are so many people who need help, so many planets enslaved, and they’ve already had to wait for ten thousand years, I hate making them wait any longer. But we’re only eight people, mostly untrained. There’s only so much we can do, and everyone is looking to me to lead them. Sometimes I don’t think I can do it, that this is all a waste of time.”

And breaking a teacup when you already think like that only enforces that helpless feeling, Mrs. Holt mused. She squeezed Allura’s wrist. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re doing a great job. I may disagree on how hard you push them, but I know why you do it. I think you’re the only one who could possibly wrangle this group of misfits into Voltron.”

A smile pulled at Allura’s lips. “Thank you. That does mean a lot, coming from you.” 

They shared a quick laugh, and Mrs. Holt knew things would be okay between them. 

Voltron might be fighting an uphill battle, but Mrs. Holt had faith in her new family. They had already made a huge difference for so many people, and the rumors of Voltron’s presence were spreading through the stars. As hard as it was going to be, if anybody could stop Zarkon, it was this family. 

Mrs. Holt was just glad she was there to watch it and to help in whatever way she could.


End file.
